Letting Some Notes Ring

Just to track where I am, here are two recordings from practice today.

Giant Steps - 200bpm
http://www.box.net/shared/teezssv0bj

All the Things You Are
http://www.box.net/shared/1kzx7vqys5

My goal here was to avoid playing continuous streams of eighth notes and really think of the melody. I've been learning to be aware of this the last few weeks from my lessons. When I listen to the masters play, I only perceive the fast eighth note lines. But if I listen closer, there's more breaks in there than I thought, even at faster tempos.

So the lesson I learned was to "Let the Notes Ring". I realize now that this makes for better melodies and delineates ideas.

When I was playing, my teacher would stop me and say "HOLD THAT NOTE!". This is because I just keep streaming notes like scales and there's no time for an idea to catch up.

Hopefully a little bit of this is coming in to my playing. There's more of this to be done, but I think it's happening